All at sixes and sevens
sorry, I can’t clarify that. I don’t know the answer but I’m sure they can find out.”
Pressed on how people are meant to keep up with rules when ministers cannot, she said: “I’m sorry, I can’t answer that. I don’t represent the North East.”
And No 10 passed the buck to the Department of Health – which would set out “full details” later.
Even Tory backbenchers were dismayed at the lack of clarity and Steve Baker said: “The rule of law requires certainty, predictability, clarity and stability. I am alarmed these have been lost.” More than 17.4 million across the UK, in more than 40 different local areas, are subject to an array of different lockdown rules.
Further strict rules are expected for Merseyside within days, while Lancashire and London remain “in the balance” after cases soared.
Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson, who is in talks with DoH officials, warned a full two-week “circuitbreak” lockdown may be needed.
More than 110 people are in Lancashire’s hospitals with Covid-19 and Burnley has the highest weekly rate of new cases in England at 300 per 100,000. And
Denbighshire, Flintshire, Conwy and Wrexham in North Wales will be placed under local lockdowns from 6pm tomorrow. The move will affect 504,000 and bring the number in Wales under lockdown to more than 2.3 million.
Mr Johnson will hold a press conference today to explain the latest infection numbers. It comes as he faces a party rebellion with 50 backbenchers demanding a vote on further lockdown plans.
MPs likened the sneaking out of sweeping powers at the weekend to something in George Orwell’s 1984. They included a ban on dancing in pubs – and fines for parents if teens leave home when meant to be self-isolating.
Leaders in Newcastle and Gateshead also hit out after not being warned of the changes.
Newcastle City Council leader Nick Forbes said the PM’s confusion “sends out the message they don’t know what they’re doing”.
The Labour politician, who had not seen detail of the new rules 24 hours after they were announced, added: “They are making it up as they go along. We have had 24 hours of chaos and confusion that was entirely avoidable.”
And Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon said: “We were not told beforehand.”
Meanwhile, it emerged one in six state secondaries in England are not fully open. Teaching unions want “Nightingale classes” and extra teaching staff.
IGNORANT Boris Johnson doesn’t even know his own “rule of six” or the virus laws imposed on North East England.
Busking and jokes helped him win an election but there is nothing funny now, when tens of thousands are dead, people are continuing to die, the pandemic is spreading again and the economy is wrecked.
The incompetent PM and other ministers failing to explain the Government’s policies was pitiful and dangerous.
It’s impossible to imagine another recent PM who would have proved so clueless.
Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major, Margaret Thatcher – all would know what they were doing whether we approved of it or not.
Tory MPs will be cringing as Johnson kills satire with a string of humiliating blunders that leaves The Thick of It political comedy resembling a study on good governance. Rishi Sunak must be licking his lips in anticipation.